“There are no plans of a bilateral visit in the coming months unless India’s outreach goes beyond symbolic measures,” a political source in Dhaka said.
New Delhi: Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman is unlikely to undertake a bilateral visit to India anytime soon and is also expected to skip the BRICS Leaders’ Summit scheduled next month, ThePrint has learnt.
There is no chance of a bilateral visit unless Delhi is ready to walk the talk,” a political source in Dhaka told ThePrint.
India’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Dinesh Trivedi had already met Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman and Prime Minister Tarique Rahman as officials from both sides were working to address the timing and terms of a possible visit.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)Also read: India pushes for Bangladesh PM visit next week, while Dhaka indicates September preference
This comes amid growing differences between the two countries over former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her press conferences and interviews with the media in New Delhi.
“There are no plans of a bilateral visit in the coming months unless India’s outreach goes beyond symbolic measures,” a political source in Dhaka said.
New Delhi: Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman is unlikely to undertake a bilateral visit to India anytime soon and is also expected to skip the BRICS Leaders’ Summit scheduled next month, ThePrint has learnt.
Political sources in Bangladesh said Rahman’s government wants better relations with India but believes New Delhi will have to make a substantive political gesture if ties are to move forward.
Some of the sources even said that a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Dhaka could provide the signal to the people of Bangladesh that India is genuinely interested in resetting ties.
“Any outreach now will have to happen from India’s side, perhaps a visit by Modi to Dhaka. There is no chance of a bilateral visit unless Delhi is ready to walk the talk,” a political source in Dhaka told ThePrint.
The sources stressed that the Rahman government was not pursuing an anti-India policy and wanted stable and friendly relations with New Delhi. However, they said the new government could not be seen as compromising on what it describes as Bangladesh’s national dignity and sovereignty.
“The messaging from this government is not anti-India, unlike the previous interim administration of Yunus. Nor has the government indulged in anti-India rhetoric. Yet the Indian attitude remains the same as it was with the previous regime,” another source said.
The sources pointed out the delay in restoring tourist visas by India to Bangladeshi nationals. Although Rahman’s government was sworn in in February this year, tourist visas remained suspended until the end of June. When they were restored, they were not issued under the earlier system of longer-duration visas, the sources said.
For Dhaka, the issue is increasingly about public perception as much as government-to-government ties.
“More than BNP (the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party), it is the public which thinks that India is doing mere lip service and is not sincere about establishing ties with Bangladesh 2.0,” a source said.
Rahman, the sources added, would not want to be seen as going against that sentiment. He is referred to by his supporters as “Janatar PM”, the people’s prime minister, and he cannot afford to appear to be conceding to New Delhi without reciprocal gestures, they argued.
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The obstacle
At the heart of the friction between the two countries is the ousted Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India on 5 August 2024 following the students’ uprising in the country.
Bangladesh’s interim administration and the subsequent elected government have repeatedly asked India to prevent Hasina from using Indian territory to conduct political activities. Her continued public appearances and statements have become a major irritant for the BNP-led government in Dhaka.
The latest flare-up followed Hasina’s appearance in New Delhi on 5 August, where she addressed a gathering and criticised the situation in Bangladesh. She claimed that law and order had collapsed, the economy was in ruins, and said her return to Bangladesh in December would be a “duty” to the country’s citizens.
Dhaka reacted sharply, saying that allowing Hasina to make such comments from Indian soil was deeply hurtful to the sentiments of the Bangladeshi people and detrimental to efforts to restore bilateral ties.
The Bangladesh government has also sought Hasina’s extradition. It has asked India to hand over other fugitives as well as suspects accused in the killing of Osman Hadi, a leader of the “revolutionary” Inqilab Moncho who was shot dead in December 2025. He was a fierce critic of Sheikh Hasina.
At a news briefing Sunday, Bangladesh Foreign Ministry spokesperson A K M Shahidul Karim said the two governments had been in contact for several weeks over a possible bilateral visit by Rahman, but that the process had been “vitiated” by Hasina’s public appearance in New Delhi.
“We have made our position clear on this matter. We are of the view that a propitious environment needs to be created for this visit,” Karim said.
He added that Bangladesh had asked India to “expeditiously act” on its request for Hasina’s extradition and the handover of other fugitives and accused killers, in accordance with the bilateral extradition treaty. “We are awaiting their response.”
Visit plans put on hold
The disagreement has complicated plans for what would have been Rahman’s first visit to India since taking office in February. Indian officials had proposed 21 and 22 August for the visit, as reported by ThePrint, while Dhaka had indicated a preference for early September, partly taking into account its domestic political calendar.
Those dates, however, were discussed before Hasina’s latest public appearance in New Delhi.
Bangladesh is scheduled to hold a presidential election on 20 August, while Parliament is due to begin its third session on 27 August.
India has also invited Rahman to attend the BRICS Leaders’ Summit next month in his capacity as chairman of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).
But Dhaka prefers a stand-alone bilateral visit, which it believes would allow the two sides to address a wider range of contentious issues rather than restrict discussions to the margins of a multilateral gathering.
With Rahman now unlikely to travel to India in the immediate future, the question is what can break the current impasse.
Bangladesh’s position, according to people familiar with the thinking in Dhaka, is that the relationship has to be rebuilt on what Rahman’s government describes as “mutual respect, sovereign equality and mutual benefit”, rather than the heavily tilted relationship it believes existed during Hasina’s tenure.
The message from Dhaka is, therefore, not that Bangladesh wants to distance itself from India, but that it wants New Delhi to recognise that the political equation has changed.
India’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Dinesh Trivedi had already met Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman and Prime Minister Tarique Rahman as officials from both sides were working to address the timing and terms of a possible visit.
But the diplomatic outreach has so far failed to produce a breakthrough.
Karim also said on Sunday that Bangladesh would continue to follow its “Bangladesh First” policy, stressing that Dhaka wanted friendly relations with its neighbours based on “sovereign equality, national dignity, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs and mutual benefit”.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
Also read: India pushes for Bangladesh PM visit next week, while Dhaka indicates September preference
